The invention relates to an elongate strip or molding of the type attached to an automobile body or the like for protection and decoration and methods for its manufacture.
Trim strips of various configurations have been used in the automotive industry to decorate and protect the surfaces of an automobile, especially body side surfaces. In recent years, emphasis has been placed on replacing chromed metallic trim strips with plastic trim strips which do not corrode and which can be attached to an automobile body adhesively without fasteners. Examples of plastic trim or molding strips include Waugh, U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,179, Madonia, U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,155, Narita, U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,681, Wenrick, U.S. Pat. No. 4,010,297, Sawa et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,914,482, and Kent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,425.
Many of these trim strips are formed on plastic resin substrates onto which another layer or layers of decorative metal or plastic are placed. For example, Waugh, U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,179, discloses a trim strip having an adhesively-backed foil substrate of metal or plastic over which is cast a curable liquid plastic resin. The resin forms a lens cap over the substrate, giving a lens effect to the decorative indicia printed on the foil.
However, the need for such foil substrates adds to the costs of manufacture of such trim strips. Additionally, the thickness of the substrate may limit the overall flexibility of the trim strip and make it more difficult to adhere permanently to contoured surfaces. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a trim strip and method of manufacture which is both inexpensive to make and has the requisite flexibility to mold and adhere to contoured surfaces.